Organ

Burno Mathieu is a pupil of Marie-Claire Alain, and a splendid organist in his own right. Moreover, he chooses the ‘historic’ organ at Nancy, which still has mechanical traction, and provides a very characterful baroque palette of its own, richly displayed in the Cantiléne No.3. But the pedals are very telling, too, and the finale of No. 6 is powerfully spectacular; yet overall, inner detail is remarkably clear. The only small disappointment is the Scherzo of No. 6, where the diabolic rhythmic figure is not as ironically piquant as with Van Oosten.

Johann Sebastian Bach trained his many sons to be the finest organists of their time, yet hardly any organ music survives from them. Through transcription, improvisation, and other acts of imaginative re-creation this recording reunites Bach and his boys for a program that recaptures the virtuosic panache, commanding counterpoint, impressive poise, and exuberant excess of this first family on the organ. Played by award-winning Bach scholar and organist David Yearsley on Cornell University's reconstruction of a Berlin organ from 1706, known to at least one of the Bach sons, this program explores new dimensions not only of Johann Sebastian's towering achievement but also of the kinds of now-lost contributions the next Bach generation might have made to their family instrument's long and glorious history.

This CD is a continuation of the set of Handel organ concertos recorded in the Oud-Katholieke Kerk of The Hague in September 1975. These were originally recorded in quadraphonic sound with the engineers achieving a splendid natural sound with plenty of presence. The masterful performances sound authentic indeed. These are the only multi-channel recordings of this music and highly recommended.

Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Now come, Saviour of the Heathen) appears in three versions. The chorale on which it is based is Martin Luther's adaptation of the original Ambrosian hymn Veni Redemptor gentium. The first of these, for two manuals and pedals, opens with the first measures of the chorale theme in the tenor, imitated at once in the alto register, over a constantly moving pedal bass. The melody is then elaborated in the upper part to form an ornamented line.

Karl Richter's Bach performances, although they represented a departure from the over-romanticized treatments of Baroque music that had prevailed up to his time, were not the kind of trailblazing return-to-authenticity projects of Trevor Pinnock, Christopher Hogwood, and others, whose early-music-performance practices continue to be the standard today.

Friedrich Lux (1820–95) was one of the breed of musicians who bound together musical life in nineteenth-century Germany: though he worked away from the major cities, as conductor, teacher, organist, organiser and composer, he was an indispensable element of the communities in which he worked. His large body of organ music, as good as unknown before now, brings together elements of the musical language of Bach, Mendelssohn and Schumann, in works that range from the intimate to the grandiose.

The disc includes one of Weckmann's finest works, the Magnificat Secundi, a score in four verses that becomes increasingly complex in the number of organ voices used. That he could also devise many 'new' sounds comes in the intriguing descending passage in the second verse of Nun freut euch Liebe. Equally fascinating is the jaunty theme that the composer puts through many twists and turns in the charming Canzon. The disc ends with the sixth verse of O Lux Reata Trinitas, one of the most imposing pieces written at that time.

Pianomusiikista tunnetun säveltäjän kappaleiden urkusovitukset tuovat selkeästi esille Kiviniemen vertaansa vailla olevan virtuositeetin [ja] urkujen soittimelliset mahdollisuudet… Helminä nousevat tunnetun cis-molli-preludin ohella sarja oopperasta Aleko sekä lyhennetty versio Rapsodiasta Paganinin teemaan. Kiviniemen taito näkyy (…) siinä, miten selkeästi solistisen pianomateriaalin artikulaatio säilyy läpi haastavimpien kohtien.